At eight-thirty that night—and once the boat was safely inside the confines of the bay—Hanes stumbled across the bottle again while smoking a cigarette. Because the sun was dropping lower in the sky, he picked it up but saw nothing unusual inside, and he tossed it overboard without a second glance, thereby insuring that the bottle would wash up along one of the many small communities that lined the bay.

It didn’t happen right away, however. The bottle drifted back and forth for a few days—as if deciding where to go before choosing its course—and it finally washed up along the shore on a beach near Chatham.

And it was there, after 26 days and 738 miles, that it ended its journey.

Chapter 1

A cold December wind was blowing, and Theresa Osborne crossed her arms as she stared out over the water. Earlier, when she’d arrived, there had been a few people walking along the shore, but they’d taken note of the clouds and were long since gone. Now she found herself alone on the beach, and she took in her surroundings. The ocean, reflecting the color of the sky, looked like liquid iron, and waves rolled up steadily on the shore. Heavy clouds were descending slowly, and the fog was beginning to thicken, making the horizon invisible. In another place, in another time, she would have felt the majesty of the beauty around her, but as she stood on the beach, she realized that she didn’t feel anything at all. In a way, she felt as if she weren’t really here, as if the whole thing was nothing but a dream.

She’d driven here this morning, though she scarcely remembered the trip at all. When she’d made the decision to come, she’d planned to stay overnight. She’d made the arrangements and had even looked forward to a quiet night away from Boston, but watching the ocean swirl and churn made her realize that she didn’t want to stay. She would drive home as soon as she was finished, no matter how late it was.



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